The ramblings of a veteran teacher, scientist, parent, and techie

Courage to Fail [REPOST]

The fifth anniversary year of Scripted Spontaneity is winding down, but I have a few more favorite posts to highlight here. What follows is a short piece I wrote in February 2011. The original post and comments can be found here.

After ten years of teaching, there are many students whose memories haunt me. Most often it’s because of what I wish I had done differently. Sometimes I think about the ones with whom I was never able to connect or who never bought into what we were doing in class. Often these were those “reluctant learners” that come to our classes so accustomed to failure that they have lost any interest in learning.

I am reminded of a recent post by Garr Reynolds, author of the fantastic Presentation Zen, on his PZ blog. With his spiritual, yet practical, way, Garr describes the power of failure. He quotes from Buddha in saying that

“There are only two mistakes that one can make along the road to truth; not going all the way and not starting.”

It’s these powerful words that resonate with me and help me get over the memory of past failure. The sentiment is a difficult one to grasp when you are faced with the real prospect of failure. By acknowledging as educators the risk of failure and its ability to teach us about ourselves, we model this critical awareness for our students. It takes great courage to be willing to fail, and we need to find a way to instill this courage in all of our students.

In coming up for air on the other side of this depressing issue, I decided to make a positive contribution to the conversation. And so, here is a slide that I hope will add some depth to your slide deck: